Most agree that teaching is a calling—but Mr. Corey Manchester seems to take this idea to another level. In fact, he has known that he wanted to be a teacher since he was in just the third grade.

“My grandparents were both teachers, and I used to go to my grandma’s classroom and help her. I just knew the minute I got in there that that’s where I belonged,” Mr. Manchester said. “Helping her run the classroom and grading papers and helping students—I just settled right into it.”

After Mr. Manchester received his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and his Master’s in Statistics, he considered doing statistic for a company because, he explained, “I was chasing the money.” But as a graduate student, when given an opportunity to teach, Mr. Manchester said, “I knew there was no turning back.”

Now, fourteen years later, it seems that Mr. Manchester is always in a classroom. He teaches math at San Diego State University and Grossmont College during weekdays and summers, night school at University of Redlands, and thanks to the newly implemented UCSD extension program, 7th period Calculus D at Cathedral Catholic. “When people ask what my hobbies are, I say teaching,” he said. “It’s so much fun.”

Interestingly, the position at a Cathedral more or less found him. The UCSD program manager contacted him, so he applied over the summer and landed the job. “It just happened. It’s really exciting,” he said.

Professor Manchester is not accustomed to teaching high school, but Calculus D is definitely not a typical high school class. “Calculus 3 is a pretty advanced course. That’s one of the examples.” He said, motioning to the whiteboard behind him – covered in numbers, symbols, and letters – and laughed. “It just looks like a mess.”

There are only fourteen students in the class, all seniors, and they definitely aren’t just average students. “This group of students is interesting because they already passed what my SDSU students are doing,” Mr. Manchester said.

In addition to understanding the challenging material, these students mostly lack what Mr. Manchester calls “math baggage”- something that many of his college students struggle to carry. “People have bad experiences with math, and they have bad math teachers and people commit early on to not not getting it. They resign themselves to not being a math person,” said Mr. Manchester.

This math baggage must be left at the door before entering Calc D, or any of Mr. Manchester’s classes. “Nobody ever admits to not being a good reader but they are totally willing to embrace not being a math person.” he said. “But I don’t necessarily think that’s true. You can move forward and become good at math and learn to appreciate it. It just might take some coaching.”

Mr. Manchester really enjoys being that coach. “I’ve never not wanted to go to work,” he said, smiling. “I’m happy to be here [at Cathedral] because I love teaching. Without this UCSD partnership I wouldn’t have been in a high school classroom…. Probably ever.”